| The dissertation is based on the state strategic project of citizen moral construction, and chooses a particular perspective of personal character development of Chinese citizenship, and also based on the interpretation framework and theoretic paradigm of the practice and theory of virtue theory. This dissertation builds up a common dialogue platform on which citizen moral education and virtue theory would happen to meet each other, provided with this base I would like to thoroughly scrutinize the relevant virtue ethics theoretic recourses of personal character development. And in this historical depth, this dissertation is about to unfold itself. The whole diss ertation is composed of one introduction and four chapters, and it is about to achieve a mission that is to find a comprehensive virtue ethics support for state citizenship moral construction, and find a particular moral education practice methodology which is combined Chinese traditional ethics and unique citizen moral situation in the contemporary modernization transition of china.The introduction roughly describes the moral crisis of china, and emphasizes the world universality of the moral crisis. It also argues that the nature of moral crisis is an outcome of the moral values rift between tradition and modern society and the vacuum condition of modern moral values in the process of modernity transition. Secondly, this introduction tries to compare developed countries worldwide and give out a common point which is that developed countries put more attention to moral education than economic growth, and also think that a systematic and durative moral education should be undertaken. Finally introduction discusses at length three questions:First the significance of this dissertation, in the background of virtue ethics, is there any possibility to achieve the combination of citizen moral construction and personal character development. On the base of western virtue ethics I extract the basic concepts and structure of it, and try to approximately build up a base to combine Chinese traditional virtue ethics with its western counterpart.Secondly the condition of the theory and practice domestic and abroad pertaining to citizen moral construction. Although the contemporary virtue theory involves some concepts, but not in length, it is just at the start point of abstract truth, not at the finish of concrete truth. The methodology is monotonous, some is confined within philosophical discussion, some is confined within education sciences and psychological perspectives. Actually a cross-discipline perspective is not at work.Finally this introduction discusses the methodology of my research.1. text interpretation, digging in the key texts of virtue ethics in the history of virtue ethics theory. I try to capture the logic thread as a whole of history of virtue ethics theory.2. Comparison analysis, comparing the western virtue ethics paradigm and education paradigm with Chinese traditional virtue ethics paradigm and education paradigm. And on this base I reassess the theoretic significance and contemporary values of Chinese virtue ethics 3. Cross-discipline methodology, In my research I involve moral psychology, education sciences and sociology. I try to put my dissertation on a comprehensive base, referred to the experiences of character education movement of developed countries such as USA, and start my Chinese way of research of this topic.The body of this dissertation is composed of four chapters whose content listed as follows:Chapter One:The Virtue Ethics Base of Character. This chapter is about to study the virtue ethics of Aristotle, Rousseau and Macintyre. The three thinkers share one common point, that is they all stand on a non-modernity position. Rousseau even is thought as a counter-modernity thinker, while Macintyre is thought without doubt as a thinker who tries to revive the tradition of wrester virtue ethics criticizing dramatically the moral philosophy based on modernity. The tradition of Aristotle, in the view of non-modernity philosophers, is already fragmented. After we discussed the essence and nature of Ethical life and the failure of justifications of morals given by Enlightment movement, we logically know that the possible way to solve the modern moral dilemma is to return to Aristotle. In which, some key concepts such as Practical wisdom, personal life world and moral emotion and so on, are rediscovered by us and this is very important for citizen moral education.Chapter two is entitled as Character Self and Contingency. In this chapter I first discuss the fundamental concept Character, its meaning, structure and psychological mechanism. Character and Virtue is interchangeable in a extensive sense. But in a strict ethics sense these two is distinctive from each other. Moral philosophy should consider the complexity of moral life, that is the dialectic of moral life. Moral self is a synthetic category which incorporated moral psychology, moral behavior and moral character. It is the internization of character structure. In some sense the modern moral crisis is the crisis of moral self integration. In the transition of modern china, on one hand, new and old moral values exists at the same time and new and old moral values rift happens to come to be a moral vacuum this also aggravate the crisis, on the other hand the more and more open of society result in the introduction of different countries which make the moral choices diverse rendering moral subject to make right moral judgments. This condition aggravates the crisis of moral self integration. The final question is the contingency of virtue, or moral luck. This is the situation element of moral self construction. When we evaluate the "right"or "wrong" of moral subject, we not only make our evaluation according to if he or she do as required of ethics values or general moral regulation, but also we should put moral subject in a complicated society and history system to consider what he or she would do like this and why he or she would not do right things.Chapter three:The Practice of Citizenship Character Education:American experiences. This chapter set forth to research moral education practices. We choose American moral education as our example. As developed capitalism country and modern society, America encountered the most sophisticated modernity crisis. In the process of modernization how should we cope with the moral crisis, how should we reshape the character structure? In this chapter I first review the history of American moral education, I divide it into four stages. The first stage is from 17th century to the end of 18th century during which American moral education is religious. The second stage is from 19th century to early 20th century during which American moral education is religion renovated; the third stage is 1890-1940 during which American moral education is modernity oriented; the fourth stage is from 1945 till now during which American moral education is in the process of revival of traditional virtue ethics. And then I discuss the contemporary American moral education main stream. I choose Lawrence Kohlberg and Thomas Lickona as topic. Finally I summarize the American experiences and extract some points that inspires us from it.Chapter four is entitled as Moral Education and The Development of Character:A Chinese Perspective and Methodology. This chapter is the standpoint of my dissertation discussing the Chinese practice paradigm and theoretic structure of citizenship moral education. Modern Chinese citizenship moral education should not west-oriented. Although western experiences is very important our traditional culture provided already for us the way and methodology about shaping personal character. We should put more attention to our traditional virtue ethics when we study the citizenship moral education in the base of personal character development. And we also should bring the tradition virtues into full play and achieve the project of shaping full and intact citizen personal character in the process of Chinese characteristic socialism modern transition. I first describe the theory and methodology in our traditional virtue ethics, the Confucianism ethics emphasize the character development in the daily life thinking that perfect personal character is achieved in the daily life. And then I discuss the relationship between socialist kernel values and citizenship moral education auguring that socialist kernel values are the Chinese particular of moral agreement... |
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